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Jerry Jones is a cheapskate

Ross Tucker, who played 7 years in the NFL including one year with the Cowboys, wrote a column for ESPN in which he talked about a number of things from a player's perspective. It's pretty interesting and if you want to check it out, here's the link. However, this is what jumped out at me the most:

Q: I think I once heard you say that you used to collect your
"used" equipment from each team you played with but that the Cowboys
charged you for some of it. Just wondering how much you paid for a
Cowboys jersey and helmet? Or did you leave them behind? What was their
explanation for being so cheap? Would their policy change in an uncapped
year?</p>

Paul in New Brunswick, Canada</p>

A: It
has nothing to do with the salary cap, and yes, I have said that the
Cowboys were the only team of five I played for that I recall charging
me via payroll deduction for my helmet. I believe it was $200. I was
told that Jerry Jones looks at equipment as team property, and if a
player wants it, he has to purchase it. I'm a business owner, so on
some level I get it, but I was pretty surprised, given how much money
the Cowboys make. They also were the only team that deducted money for
lunch every week during the season, which was even more astonishing to
me.</p>

</p>

That's pretty surprising to me considering how much money Jerry Jones makes and was willing to spend on the new stadium. Charging a player to keep his helmet is pretty classless if you ask me. Especially since for safety reasons I'm sure helmets only have a limited number of uses before they need to be replaced. I can't imagine that they would have given his helmet to another player.
</p>

Re: Jerry Jones is a cheapskate

Re: Jerry Jones is a cheapskate

Well, that is why even the dumb tee shirts say "Property of &lt;TEAM&gt;".

It's like stealing office supplies from your job. You are getting paid a salary and if you need post-it notes or tape dispensers, you should buy them with your own money, and not treat the supply cabinet as your own personal Sam's Club. And you definitely are not entitled to keep a computer or a chair or a desk.

Re: Jerry Jones is a cheapskate

[quote user="Giants10Joe"]Ross Tucker, who played 7 years in the NFL including one year with the Cowboys, wrote a column for ESPN in which he talked about a number of things from a player's perspective. It's pretty interesting and if you want to check it out, here's the link. However, this is what jumped out at me the most:

Q: I think I once heard you say that you used to collect your "used" equipment from each team you played with but that the Cowboys charged you for some of it. Just wondering how much you paid for a Cowboys jersey and helmet? Or did you leave them behind? What was their explanation for being so cheap? Would their policy change in an uncapped year?</P>

Paul in New Brunswick, Canada</P>

A: It has nothing to do with the salary cap, and yes, I have said that the Cowboys were the only team of five I played for that I recall charging me via payroll deduction for my helmet. I believe it was $200. I was told that Jerry Jones looks at equipment as team property, and if a player wants it, he has to purchase it. I'm a business owner, so on some level I get it, but I was pretty surprised, given how much money the Cowboys make. They also were the only team that deducted money for lunch every week during the season, which was even more astonishing to me.</P>

</P>

That's pretty surprising to me considering how much money Jerry Jones makes and was willing to spend on the new stadium. Charging a player to keep his helmet is <FONT size=6><U>pretty classless</U></FONT> if you ask me. Especially since for safety reasons I'm sure helmets only have a limited number of uses before they need to be replaced. I can't imagine that they would have given his helmet to another player.
</P>

Re: Jerry Jones is a cheapskate

[quote user="Bing Crosby"][quote user="jomo"]
No one ever said JJ has class.[/quote]

Exactly. This is the same Jerry Jones who fired Tom Landry with all the ceremonial pomp and circumstances given to an average McDonald's employee right?
[/quote]

Like any Giants fan, I'm no fan or defender of Jones.

But to be fair--as per NFLNetwork's "A Football Life" series episode featuring Tom Landry--it was Hank Stram who was the true D Bag in the Landry firing.

He'd wanted to let Landry go for the last couple of years of his ownership of the team (Dallas sucked those years; and even though they had gone 15-16 straight years with winning records and appeared in 5 SBs, you're only as good as your last season, right?), and he simply chickened out. He couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger.

And while I can empathize with a person who feels so strongly about a 27-28 year personal and professional relationship with a person that he can't bring himself to fire the guy, the fact is that he dumped that responsibility onto Jones when he sold the team.

I'm sure that was not the first thing Jones wanted to do--and alienate a majority of the team's fan base while he was at it, even though temporarily--upon taking ownership of the team.

The honorable thing (and less stressful in the end) would have been for Stram to talk man-to-man with Landry 1 or 2 years earlier, and given him the option to "retire" on his own.

Given his age at the time and length of service with the Cowboys, and given that the team HAD declined over the previous few years to the extent of making fans grumble, and given the alternative (being fired and humiliated) I doubt Landry would have objected to "voluntary" retirement.

Had that simple tactic been used, all 3 principles would have saved face, the former and the new owners would have been satisfied and able to smoothly move forward, and Landry would have left the game without controversy and some degree of humiliation.

Re: Jerry Jones is a cheapskate

[quote user="gmen46"][quote user="Bing Crosby"][quote user="jomo"]
No one ever said JJ has class.[/quote]

Exactly. This is the same Jerry Jones who fired Tom Landry with all the ceremonial pomp and circumstances given to an average McDonald's employee right?
[/quote]

Like any Giants fan, I'm no fan or defender of Jones.

But to be fair--as per NFLNetwork's "A Football Life" series episode featuring Tom Landry--it was Hank Stram who was the true D Bag in the Landry firing.

He'd wanted to let Landry go for the last couple of years of his ownership of the team (Dallas sucked those years; and even though they had gone 15-16 straight years with winning records and appeared in 5 SBs, you're only as good as your last season, right?), and he simply chickened out. He couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger.

And while I can empathize with a person who feels so strongly about a 27-28 year personal and professional relationship with a person that he can't bring himself to fire the guy, the fact is that he dumped that responsibility onto Jones when he sold the team.

I'm sure that was not the first thing Jones wanted to do--and alienate a majority of the team's fan base while he was at it, even though temporarily--upon taking ownership of the team.

The honorable thing (and less stressful in the end) would have been for Stram to talk man-to-man with Landry 1 or 2 years earlier, and given him the option to "retire" on his own.

Given his age at the time and length of service with the Cowboys, and given that the team HAD declined over the previous few years to the extent of making fans grumble, and given the alternative (being fired and humiliated) I doubt Landry would have objected to "voluntary" retirement.

Had that simple tactic been used, all 3 principles would have saved face, the former and the new owners would have been satisfied and able to smoothly move forward, and Landry would have left the game without controversy and some degree of humiliation.